


The Best Laid Plans

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-07 20:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4276701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leslie decides to make a new holiday while the Parks department is closed, because that's the sort of thing Leslie does. Ann (of course) is with her to oversee the chaos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Down to Business

**Author's Note:**

> The beautiful, wonderful Ann/Leslie fics by Aphrodite-Mine, gloss, and others provided inspiration for me to become interested in this pairing, so thank you!

Nicknames have started following Ann Perkins around a lot over the past few years.  


There was, of course, Andy’s cute (if predictable) “A-Cakes,” followed by Mark’s sarcastic “P.A,” short for “Perky Ann” (since she’s anything but when she has to wake up before 6:00 A.M. to go to the hospital). Now, of course, she hears all sorts of jumbled, quirky, lovable combos from Leslie.  
And none from Chris.  
She really shouldn’t be so upset at such a trivial detail, but—  
“Ann Perkins!”  
She flips her grimace to a grin, but it has trouble scaling her face to reach her eyes. Chris’ genial enthusiasm grates on her today a bit more than usual, and that irritation manifests itself in her response.  
“Why do you still do that? Every time, it’s Ann Perkins!” She mimics his excited hello. “It’s like I’m not different from any of the other people you run into all the time.” Her voice is clipped, chopping away at the inadequate greeting, and the sentences staccato, shortening Chris’ smile.  
“I’m sorry, Ann. I didn’t realize it irritated you that much.”  
“It’s okay.” She sighs, tries to shrug it off. Really, Chris is generally a wonderful almost-boyfriend, although sometimes a bit too peppy. But, hey, she’s dealt with worse. Still, always looking for bright sides in negatives—especially in relationships—is a skill, or perhaps a habit, Ann wishes she didn’t have to utilize so often.  
“So the budget is finally on track?” she asks. Of course, she’s heard alternating stories of sunshine and rainbows and hellish doom from Leslie, who yo-yos back and forth between positivity and pessimism at breakneck speeds. Chris has a much more realistic feel on the department’s monetary pulse.  
“It is literally a week ahead of schedule,” he beams. “Having these occasional half days is nice since it gives people more time to exercise and get more in touch with nature, especially with it being summer. But obviously having less money is not so great. Still, things should be back to normal in a couple of weeks, and I look forward to seeing more of your gorgeous face around here.”  
“Thanks,” she blushes a bit, and they kiss goodbye. Chris has a “potentially fantastic!” meeting with Ben, and Ann has a date with the nearest vending machine to grab a Coke. She knows she shouldn’t drink it, but she’s also exhausted from pulling too many overtime shifts at the hospital.  
Despite her minor irritation with Chris, Ann’s mostly happy with their arrangement. Not quite dating, but could be soon. She’s also relieved to finally get straight talk from someone—and it’s not just because she wants the extra cash back in her life. She enjoys being a nurse, but prefers working with the people—the friends—she knows at City Hall. Ann wouldn’t have thought it possible two years ago, but she’s…well, social. It’s a Leslie Knope effect.  
So are new holidays.  
“This year, in honor of the fact that Pawnee is first in friendship, we shall have Indefriendence Day!” Leslie proclaims at the 12:00 staff meeting the next day. “It’s a week after the 4th of July.” The title is scrawled on the top of a grocery list that looks like it was made by a 12 year old: Sweetums bars, whipped cream, hot chocolate mix, and Twizzlers.  
“It sounds like you’re saying we’re independent of friends. Like, we are celebrating not having friends,” April contends. A sliver of a smile plays on her face. “I like that.”  
“No, April,” Leslie counters. “It’s meant to show that even in the midst of the shutdown, our department is committed to fostering a sense of community in Pawnee. Just like our parks do,” she beams.  
Ann’s tempted to pull out an old nickname and call Leslie a beautiful, naïve, sophisticated newborn baby. She’s almost stupidly innocent and hopeful in her beliefs. She has this purity, this lack of jaded cynicism, that screams “Life hasn’t crushed me and I’m blessed with a silver spoon!” That’s not true, though. Leslie just bears disappointment unlike anyone Ann’s known before. She also possesses a slightly maniacal drive, a drive and passion that result in crazy, near unthinkable actions. Hell, maybe even miracles. Like getting the pit filled in. And yeah, those miracles aren’t always accomplished with a heavenly chorus. Leslie’s not afraid of breaking three cartons of eggs to produce one burnt, nearly inedible frittata, plus problems follow her like raccoons stalk food in Pawnee. But she’s never one to back down from a challenge, no matter how daunting, and that attitude is contagious like swine flu, so Ann’s not even thinking before she says, “I’ll make posters for it and reach out to Freddy Spaghetti. I’m sure he’d like to earn some extra money.”  
Leslie nods. “Thank you, Ann, you beautiful Emperor penguin. Or Empress, I don’t know.” Leslie always delivers those compliments in the same way. There’s a bit of a smile there, but her head is completely stationary, her jaw is set, and her eyes are locked on Ann, blotting out every other person.  
It takes Ann a few seconds to join the others at the table in the main room after she realizes she wants to unhinge that moment of “just Ann and Leslie” from normal time regulations, freeze it, and step back into it.  
She sweeps the thought aside like it’s a loose wisp of hair, but it doesn’t stay unobtrusive for long. Ron claps her on the shoulder. “Well done, Ann. You’re doing an excellent job of being unproductive, setting a great example for everyone else here.”  
“Well, I’m not trying to be,” she replies, only a tad defensively. Even in middle school, Ann wanted recognition when she saved her classmates’ butts on group projects. However, considering this two sentence exchange is one of the longest she’s shared with Ron, she’ll take the accusation of laziness in stride.  
As the week rolls along and the biggest disaster is that Andy accidentally eats a bit of glue because there’s no label on the jar and he mistakes it for marshmallow fluff, Ann realizes Leslie’s event could be not a trainwreck (which is a pretty grand success for the Parks department).  
She swears at herself for jinxing it when her phone rings at 5:32 A.M. on July 11th. There’s only one person who would be calling her now.  
“Hi, Le-”  
“Ann! Remember that ice cream truck we booked for super cheap?”  
“Yeah,” she mumbles, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.  
“Well, it was super cheap because the AC was faulty and the fridges aren’t cold, and those things are a big problem when you want to keep ice cream cold!”  
Ann wants to sarcastically reply, “Duh,” roll over, hang up the phone, and fall back asleep. But she can’t. Not when Leslie’s in panic mode, since a panicked Leslie does even more irrational things than a perfectly calm Leslie.  
“Ok, so, what's the gameplan?” Ann yawns.  
“Find a way to keep the ice cream cold! Ann, I know you’re so beautiful that sometimes you can say things without thinking, but this is common sense here!” Leslie shouts.  
“Wait, you already HAVE the ice cream in the truck?”  
“I figured why not get it at the grocery store while I was shopping and put it in Mr. Frostee ahead of time so I could talk more with people who come to the event, right? That would make for a successful event, right?” Anxiety has crawled into Leslie’s warbling voice.  
Ann groans. Sometimes Leslie is just too eager to do things ridiculously ahead of schedule. She’s like a little kid on Christmas. Only for her, Christmas is ANY event that could make Pawnee a better place.  
“Why don’t you go to City Hall and put some of the ice cream in the freezer in the break room?” Ann suggests.  
“I’m on my way there right now," Leslie answers, and sure enough, the sound of screeching tires assaults Ann’s ears through the iPhone. Sometimes, Leslie kinda forgets that speeding through a suburb littered with stop signs isn’t the best idea. But she doesn’t really care, obviously, since Ann can hear keys jangling after another six minutes of trying to calm Leslie down.  
“Ann! It’s locked. Why are they still wanting to keep me out?” Leslie whines. Ann gets scared when she hears the whine. It’s usually accompanied by absurd plans and/or overzealous waffle consumption.  
“Ok, Les, look. You can come over and put it in my freezer,” Ann reassures her. Whether she offers out of extreme generosity, stupidity, or desperation, she doesn’t know. But she can’t just stand by as this event spirals into chaos hours before it’s even due to begin.  
“Thanks, Ann! You’re the bestest best friend! I owe you…I don’t know, I owe you something spectacular and awesome, like free waffles!”  
“Thanks, Leslie. See you in a bit.” Thirty minutes later, Ann’s back from Walmart with several 5 lb. bags of ice and three new coolers that she won’t use after the weekend’s over. It’s 6:18 A.M., and she’s lost $48.39. Maybe the lack of sleep has something to do with it, but she’s smiling nonetheless.  
Ann ends up helping Leslie serve the ice cream, of course, since no one else wants to do the thankless job in an overheated, cramped, broken down Mr. Frostee. Tom is “producing a swag-tastic music mix,” which means he’s playing his Drake/Boyz II Men/J. Cole/Justin Timberlake Pandora station on full blast. Andy and April are running the ring toss and striving to achieve opposite goals: April moves the bottles extra far away to make it more difficult for the kids to make a successful throw, but Andy gives away big prizes for practically nothing and is pestering the clown to make a balloon animal friend for the lonely stuffed kangaroo. Ann laughs in sympathy, pity, a bit of self-loathing. “How did I date Andy Dwyer for so long?”  
“He’s nice enough, and sweet, and funny, if a little goofy,” Leslie chimes in. She inches her hand toward the can of whipped cream, but Ann swats it away.  
“Yeah,” Ann sighs. “It’s just, between him, and Mark, and this thing with Chris. It makes me wonder if I’m cut out for a relationship. I don’t exactly…I’ve never felt like the guys I’ve been with have been my everything, even though I let them kinda take over my life.”  
Leslie shrugs and squeezes Ann’s hand—the one that’s covered in hot sauce and caramel, of course. “When you find the person that wants you to be…” she pauses and licks the sugary goodness off her own hand, eyes half closed since she’s savoring it, and Ann has to direct her snort of a laugh away from a half made banana split. Leslie continues, unperturbed. “When you find the person that encourages and allows you to be the best Ann Perkins you can be, it won’t feel like you’re losing anything to them.”  
Leslie usually isn’t one to dish out relationship advice, but her words are surprisingly on point. Ann smiles and feels herself glowing a bit. “Thanks, Les. That’s really helpful.”  
“Of course.” Leslie smiles at her, but breaks into an even bigger grin at Ben, who’s come to grab a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a sugary kiss from his girlfriend.  
“This is all going really well,” he tells her, patting her on the back, looking genuinely happy. Not overly happy, like Chris. Just content. “I can’t wait to see what all you can do with a budget and actual planning time and a normal schedule.”  
“Well, my schedule’s hardly normal, but, yanno, it works,” Leslie yammers. She has that flushed tone in her voice, though. She’s only talking to make her staring (some might call it ogling) of Ben a tad less conspicuous.  
Ann tries to tell herself she’s only annoyed that Ben is there because it makes the ice cream truck even more cramped, but really…she’s a bit jealous. She doesn’t have quite so many lunch dates with Leslie any more. And yeah, it’s a normal thing, to spend more time with your boyfriend than your best friend, but Ann and Leslie are hardly normal best friends. Normal best friends don’t go on practice dates or keep extra whipped cream in the fridge or throw parties for the first day they work together, do they? After Ben’s done chatting with Leslie—or at least looks like he’s done chatting, which is good enough reason to get him to leave, right?—she makes a shooing motion and says, with a fucking fake grin, “We’ll see you later, okay, Ben? Got more ice cream to dish out.”  
“Uh, yeah, okay.” He presses a quick kiss to Leslie’s cheek before leaving.  
Les frowns. “What was that about?”  
“It’s crowded in here. And muggy,” Ann shrugs, digging deeper than necessary into a cookie dough ice cream container so she doesn’t have to look Leslie in the face.  
Things seem to be getting back to normal until Les sidles up to Ann—not a dfficult task, given they’re never more than four steps away from each other in the truck—and gives her a conspiratorial wink.  
“I know why you kicked Ben out of here. Less man time, more Ann time!” She enthusiastically high fives Ann, who laughs and pretends the phrase didn’t send butterflies rocketing around her stomach.


	2. Little Bit of InsANNity

Ann manages to forget about Leslie related unrest for about two weeks. As Chris had predicted, the Parks department is back to normal, so Leslie is working herself to the bone, spending loads of time with Ben, and eating too many waffles. At least, Ann assumes that’s what’s happening in her best gal pal’s life. Between her own over stuffed work schedule and having one Saturday hijacked by Chris so she could go hiking in unseasonably chilly temperatures (joy) and one Sunday lost to a terrible cold (yet more joy), she’s been unable to see Les at all as August rolls around. Ann calls her on a Friday afternoon. For once, she has a whole weekend off, and there’s no way Leslie has park related stuff going on for an entire 2.5 days. On second thought, it’s Leslie Knope, so she probably does.  
The voicemail message comes on. “Hello, this is Leslie Knope, Deputy Director of the Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department. I’m not here right now, so please leave a message. If it’s an emergency, uhh…leave an emphatic message, or find some way to reach me. At my office, cause I’m probably there. Have a good day!”   
“Uh, hi, Leslie, it’s Ann. I was wondering if you wanted to, uhh, go to the Snakehole tonight or something. I’m off work for the weekend, so I’ll be around. Bye.” Ann wishes she didn’t feel like a teenager.   
“At least I didn’t say I miss you or call me or anything desperate like that,” she thinks to herself.  
“You considered it, though,” another part of her brain counters.  
“Cause she’s my best friend, and I do miss her, like-”  
Ann’s phone rings. “Party Rock Anthem” snaps her out of her reverie.  
“Hel-”  
“Beautiful, infamous panda bear Ann! Hello hello hello! I can’t believe I haven’t seen you in a while but” and Leslie’s off, explaining something about a Midwest Parks and Recreation Department conference and Ben’s weird, irrational love for calzones and writing even more lists than usual about how to successfully run the department under a smaller budget and finally Ann just yells “LESLIE!”  
“Yeah?”  
“Did you have any Sweetums bars recently, by chance?”  
“Yep! Only 4, more than a 50% reduction from my usual 10,” she answers proudly.  
“That partially explains it,” Ann says, laughing, and she can’t believe the pure insanity that is Leslie Knope. She hasn’t talked to the woman for more than 30 minutes in practically a month, and she rambles incoherently about everything in her life, and she’s gonna crash from a sugar high soon, but Ann loves her nonetheless.  
The last part of that thought hits harder than a 4 A.M. alarm. She loves Leslie Knope. Not friend love. Not even best friend love. Love love. Like, I wanna wake up next to you every day and make special hot chocolate for you even though it will probably shorten your life expectancy love.  
“Fuck,” Ann whispers. She bites her lip, slams a fist on her kitchen counter, swears louder.  
“Are you okay, Ann?” The concern practically oozes from the phone, despite Leslie’s recent ascent into sugar nirvana.  
“Yeah,” she nods to herself, even though her brain screams “Nooope.”   
“Haha. Nope. Like Knope. You know, the woman you’re in love with,” her brain teases.  
“Ok, good. Very good. Know what else is very good? We can totally go to the Snakehole tonight!” Leslie beams, or at least Ann assumes so, and it’s kind of insane that she can detect Leslie’s mood through her tone of voice so easily.  
“Actually, would you mind…” Leslie’s voice sounds far away, small. Not something that generally happens. But hey, having a mind blowing, revelatory moment of beautiful and excruciating self-awareness can make anyone sorta zone out.  
“Sorry, Les, what were you saying?” Ann chokes out.  
“Would you mind if we stayed in? I’m probably gonna fall asleep soon cause of all the sugar. But we can have a dance party before then! Or watch a little CSPAN, or do other exciting things.” Leslie prattles on happily.  
Ann tries to keep her voice level. “Yeah, we can do...whatever, we’ll figure it out. See you soon.”


End file.
